Attorneys for Darlie Routier, the Altoona native on death row in Texas for the murder of her two oldest children, have informed a federal judge in San Antonio that DNA testing is underway, and they have recommended her federal appeal not be dismissed, but remain in abeyance pending the outcome of state court proceedings.

The Routier case has received nationwide attention as she fights to have her first-degree murder conviction and death penalty overturned.

Since her arrest 22 years ago next week, Routier has denied that she stabbed her two sons, Damon, 5, and Devon 6, to death in their Rowlett, Tex., home.

Routier has insisted an intruder entered the home during the early morning of June 6, 1996, and using a knife from the kitchen, stabbed her and her sons as they were sleeping in a downstairs family room.

A third child, Drake, was in an upstairs bedroom with his father, Darin, and was not harmed.

Rowlett, Tex., police, according to the defense, almost immediately focused on Routier, who herself suffered a serious neck wound and bruising during the attack. Authorities rejected her intruder story.

A Texas jury in 1997 convicted her, and she has remained on death row since then.

Routier’s present defense team has argued that her trial was infused with inflammatory remarks and less-than-credible forensic evidence that went unchallenged by her trial lawyers.

Her appeal at present remains in the state courts, but a federal petition has been filed in the U.S. District Court of West Texas.

Routier’s fight for a new trial is one of two cases featured during a seven-week docu-series called “The Last Defense,” airing on ABC.

The third of four parts devoted to the Routier murder case will be shown at 10 p.m. Tuesday.

The remaining three weeks of the series will focus on an Oklahoma carjacking-homicide in which a man named Julius Jones, also on death row, continues to maintain his innocence.

In the Routier case, the appeals process has dragged on for years as her present lawyers received court permission to undertake extensive DNA testing of the blood found at the scene — on the clothes of Routier and her sons, as well as many other items.

After a first round of testing, the defense sought court permission for an additional review of blood on items that were not tested prior to her trial.

In 2013, the defense won the right for the additional testing of blood stains on a sock found in an alley 75 yards from the home, limb hair from the sock, and a bloody fingerprint found on a coffee table at the scene — a fingerprint that did not belong to anyone in the family.

The state court ordered testing of blood stains from Routier’s night shirt, blood spots on the butcher knife used in the killings and blood stains on pillows in the room.

The defense is particularly interested in the blood on the sock.

In her trial, the prosecution argued that after Routier murdered her sons, she ran into the alley to plant the sock, then returned to the home and stabbed herself.

“If (Routier’s) blood is found on the tube sock in the alley, it will demonstrate that she was already bleeding when the sock was deposited,” according to the application for DNA testing. “Since no blood was found between the house and the alley, such evidence would prove the sock was placed in the alley by a third party, thus corroborating (Routier’s) account that the murders were committed by an unknown assailant.”

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered that a status report be filed every six months. The report filed last De­cem­ber stated items of evidence were transported to the Texas Department of Pub­lic Safety for DNA testing.

A status report filed last Tuesday in federal court by Dallas attorney Richard A. Smith, representing Rou­tier, stated the Dallas County DA’s office and defense attorneys still are awaiting the results of the tests.